Thursday, July 2, 2009

Average Workweek: ‘Nobody Is Going to Be Hiring Anytime Soon’

...The headline numbers were undoubtedly bummers, but we figured we’d focus on another number embedded in the report for a bit of insight into the market’s 150-point-plus selloff this morning.

Market watchers seem particularly troubled with the figure on average workweeks. In June, the average workweek inched down by 0.1 hour to 33.0 hours. That’s the lowest level for that figure on record — that is, going back to 1964.

“I think the average work week is the huge story,” said Dan Cook, senior market analyst at IG Markets. “It tells us that nobody is going to be hiring anytime soon.”

Ryan Detrick, senior technical strategist at Schaeffer’s Investment Research, also noted the average workweek figure, writing in an email that the all-time low in hours “further concludes that even if you have a job, the hours simply aren’t there like they use to be. So many people depend on overtime and there simply isn’t enough work to compensate for this.”>>>MORE